Job Hunting

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Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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14,508
Most of the companies I've worked for let HR dictate who does and doesn't get hired. So much so that the technical staff doesn't even see resumes until they've been passed on by HR, as if they have any experience or knowledge of what the applicant's resume even says about their qualifications. To make matters worse they usually have contracts with specific recruiting/staffing firms who are equally as incompetent at vetting before presenting said resumes. It's bureaucracy and since there are so many software developers in the generic sense talent isn't really valued or understood by the people who are in charge of staffing the company.

"He wants how much money? Just hire someone cheaper" As if there isn't an enormous cost associated with training new hires. And the tech staff is usually powerless to stop it and their opinions fall on deaf ears.
I realized after I countered Dell that I should've asked for more since they basically instantly accepted it. Also I was already trained because I worked on this team before I left. I basically started my first day and they gave me coding tasks and I hit the ground running. I guess live and learn.

Although like I said, I'm not hopping anymore.
 
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ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
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I guess bitching on FoH worked. Literally was asked to call my direct manager. I just got a promotion, 20k raise.
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
40,701
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This why I'm looking right now. I've been doing half of the responsibilities my former senior manager did, which has lead to much better budget execution on our client side, the government. When my appraisal came around I got 3% and was told it was better than most people got. Motherfuckers there is a 3% increase clause for rates in our fucking contract with the Government. Thanks for the generous fucking "raise".

On top of that, the team who had worked for my VP at his previous company and now does several research efforts, always tell him without me, the government portfolio they do research in and that I manage by myself because the 2 Gov slots meant for it have been vacant for over a year, is doing great, even better when the previous civilian was there who I worked with. VP sent me an email saying thanks for the good job. Motherfucker, give me a bonus or even lunch or something. Your fucking government client tell you how much I'm needed to make sure things run smoothly. And to add I'm the youngest manager and advisor in my department but a good decade or so, so even though I make a decent salary, I know some of the worthless older sacks of shit make well over 200k.

What pissed me off the most recently was the government director (a 2-star equivalent) giving a bonus to some random govi guy for managing that portfolio. He's literally done nothing with it and couldn't even name 1 research effort under it.

My former manager at GM who got fucking fired for being incompetent shit in my cereal and tanked my bonus and raise for that year. I was flabbergasted that GM honored his criticism despite firing him for incompetence. All because he grossly misunderstood something I wrote, misrepresented it to one of the engineering directors and got ridiculed for being a retard and blamed me for it. Just petty fucking garbage.

I bailed like 2 months after that.
 
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Lenaldo

Golden Knight of the Realm
324
108
I guess bitching on FoH worked. Literally was asked to call my direct manager. I just got a promotion, 20k raise.


You're welcome!


To keep HR out of my business i make my "required qualifications" as broad as possible. That allows them to weed out obvious people, but let through most. Its more filtering for me, but I'd rather take the time to look at more resumes vs missing good ones.

I will say interviewing and determining "good coders" from "bad coders" is really hard to do. If anyone has any tips that would be great, but quite honestly i find coding tests to be useless and havent found a great alternatively other than asking them about their projects.
 
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Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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I had a guy that had me describe a project I did then just kept digging in until I was basically describing why I set a certain variable to a 1 instead of a 0. It was very invasive, and he asked the questions so fast I felt like I got date-raped in the interview.

It was probably my favorite interview because I could tell he was asking if I knew what the hell I was talking about.
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,762
Anyone have experience negotiating salary (grade/steps) for a federal job?

Interviewing for a 14/15 position in a week and I'm curious since a 14 step 1 to 3 would be a decrease in salary.

@a_skeleton_03 Gravel Gravel
So what I have been told is that you can only negotiate step increase if you are moving an entire grade up. If you are going from 13 to 13 just different locations you can’t negotiate.

If you go from 13 step 12 to 14 step 1 you are automatically matched to the step that equals your current pay. I think you can also negotiate a few more steps so that it’s an upgrade.
 
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TomServo

<Bronze Donator>
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Well only insight I have is generally it's going to be some sort of cut. They usually are pretty damn bureaucratic and calculate all your degrees, certs experience and shit out a range.

I did dhs for years and they wanted me to convert to a 13 step 5. Fuck that.
 

ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
Well only insight I have is generally it's going to be some sort of cut. They usually are pretty damn bureaucratic and calculate all your degrees, certs experience and shit out a range.

I did dhs for years and they wanted me to convert to a 13 step 5. Fuck that.
Oh damn, that's really annoying. I'll have to calculate how much more I save in retirement and health insurance costs I guess.
 
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ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
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So what I have been told is that you can only negotiate step increase if you are moving an entire grade up. If you are going from 13 to 13 just different locations you can’t negotiate.

If you go from 13 step 12 to 14 step 1 you are automatically matched to the step that equals your current pay. I think you can also negotiate a few more steps so that it’s an upgrade.
Hmm can't negotiate a higher step when coming from the private side? So I guess I'll just try for the higher grade if that's true (what I'd do anyway)
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
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Hmm can't negotiate a higher step when coming from the private side? So I guess I'll just try for the higher grade if that's true (what I'd do anyway)
You can do that for sure if you are coming from 0 to GS14. I thought you were bumping up in the system already.
 

Pescador

Trakanon Raider
234
239
Pretty bent out of shape right now. I've had a very successful last couple of years, raised millions of dollars for my company and made some real scientific breakthroughs for our product.

I've been at this job for 4.5 years, got a promotion 2 years ago but have been basically doing work above my pay grade for a while now. I'm fairly young (32) so I was OK sticking around to prove myself and I was ready for it all to pay off. I make $100k with a performance bonus (15% last year) which is below market value in my field (San Diego, pharma), and I was really considering that the next promotion to senior management would be an inflection point for my career.

My boss (Senior VP) and said she'd be promoting me in July. Well now it's the end of June and the company just initiated a hiring freeze, likely layoffs soon, basically cost cutting across the board to re-focus on core needs to get the product to market.

Anyways, I'm meeting with my boss tomorrow and I've already been told that a promotion I had planned for one of my employees is no longer going through, so I'm pretty sure I'll be informed that my promotion is also getting cancelled. I understand the rationale. However, I do need to figure out how to respond. I wonder if now is the time to get a bit pushy and try to squeeze some sort of a raise / title bump out of this. Or I can maintain the nice guy role, say I understand, and start the job hunt and use these guys as a reference since I've built a very positive reputation here. I don't want to poison the well but I feel like I sacrificed a couple years to grind to the top and then got the rug pulled from under me.

This is kind of just a rant but any advice is appreciated on handling this. Seems like cutting my losses and moving on is the right answer though. I know it could be worse, but I'm still pretty salty and the job itself is fantastic so it'll be a shame to leave.

Forgot about this post, but I have a positive update. I stuck it out and ended up getting the promotion a couple months later (~$25k raise) and another $10k pay bump in January for being a "key contributor" to the company. I didn't have to threaten to leave or go get another offer either so I don't feel like I used up any leverage.

So, sometimes these things work out!
 
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TheNozz

Ssraeszha Raider
6,704
34,283
I’m planning on moving out of state to Utah and need to find a job out there ASAP, preferably before I move, but not sure how long I can wait in my current home state.

Any advice on how to handle my resume and prevent potential employers from being discouraged by my out-of-state status?

The options I have right now are
A) list my current address
B) list my friends address in Utah
C) list my current address, but indicate that I’ll be moving to my friends address upon being hired

Any recommendations?
 

Poster

Lord Nagafen Raider
119
24
I would go with B) in order to prevent being immediately weeded out, but don't know how necessary/useful that is for your situation.
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
40,701
102,086
Go with B. It won't be an issue at all unless they want you to interview and start you the next week.

If that happens then fly out there and make it happen if the job is appealing enough. You'd need a friend in your current area to help in moving your shit if you have enough of it to care about though. Otherwise, it won't even come up.
 

Prodigal

Shitlord, Offender of the Universe
<Bronze Donator>
1,366
1,672
I’ve been going through Indeed and LinkedIn looking for jobs - things getting progressively worse at my job and I don’t want to end up wasting away in prison for beating one or more of these idiots senseless. My problem is my previous two decades of experience are in manufacturing, and I don’t want another job in manufacturing.

Feels bad man.
 
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